The Lord's Supper no mystery

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THE

Lord's Supper jNfo Mystery,

" For as often as ye eat this bread and drink this cup, ye do show
the Lord's death till He come." — i Cor. xi. 26.

The recent judgment of the Privy Council has probably
brought to a conclusion, as far as the courts of law are
concerned, the long struggle between the two parties into
which the Church of England has always been divided,
and whose antagonism, having slumbered during the reli-
gious torpor of the last century, has only been brought to
a head during the present generation. Decision after
decision has been given, until there seems hardly any-
thing left to decide. Some one may possibly yet be
caught tripping, if it is thought worth while to prosecute
him. But it is quite evident that a clergyman need only
exercise the most moderate degree of caution to enable
him to promulgate from the pulpit, or the press, almost
anything he pleases. It has been said that Mr. Voysey
was lost by his honesty, and Mr. Bennett saved by his
cleverness. Rather, by accident. For if Dr. Pusey had
not induced him to alter two or three words in the second
edition of his book, he would certainly have been con-
demned. Yet he distinctly avowed that the alteration of
the words made not the slightest alteration in his mean-
ing ; and very few persons indeed can even now discover
any difference between them whatever. . His corrected
words convey exactly the same impression as his first, and
the effect of them would be precisely the same upon any
congregation that received his teaching. With a little

A

2 The Lord^ s Supper No Mystery.

caution Mr. Voysey might have propagated his infidelity
just as safely as Mr. Bennett can propagate his Popery
within the pale of the English Church.

The issue, therefore, to which we are brought, as
regards the Lord's Supper, is this : —

1. The Church of England is authoritatively declared
to lend no countenance to Romish error. On the whole,
it is distinctly Protestant and Evangelical. And it would
be marvellous if it were not so. For in England the
battle of the Reformation was mainly fought on this very
matter of the Lord's Supper. The compilers of the
Prayer-book tried to exclude the Romish doctrine ; and
till now, it was supposed that they had done it pretty
effectually.

2. It is decided that Romish practices, such as outward
acts of adoration to the bread and wine, with other things
of a like nature, are absolutely forbidden ; so that the
administration of the Lord's Supper must be Protestant in
form.

3. But it is also decided that a clergyman may teach
what very few persons indeed can distinguish from Romish
doctrine, and what is essentially the same thing, provided
he abstains from using certain words which would con-
stitute a verhal contradiction of the Articles. He may not
say there is a corporal — i.e., a bodily — presence of Christ
in the elements ; but he may say there is a real, actual,
objective presence.

Here are the facts, and we had better look them in the
face. It is no use criticising the judgment or the judges.
The thing is done and cannot be undone. We should be
following a very bad example if we began to rail at a court
of final appeal because, in this case, it has disappointed
our expectations. We must accept the position as it is,
and consider what is our own duty under the circum-
stances.

A few of the more impetuous spirits are inclined to

The Lord^s Supper No Mystery. 3

wipe their hands of the thing altogether, and leave a
Church which even tolerates, though without sanctioning,
what they believe to be so erroneous. But I confess that
I cannot see the necessity for this. So long as we have
the main teaching of the Church with us, and are neither
required to do anything we disapprove of, nor prevented
from proclaiming, as far as we know it, all the counsel of
God, we are surely not called upon to abandon our posi-
tion and leave the whole field to our opponents, because
they are legally permitted to promulgate some private
opinions of their own from which we dissent, and to
which the Church lends no countenance. I have very
little doubt that the Church of England will soon be
broken up. She has now little more than half the wor-
shipping population of England and Wales. And in these
days it would be exceedingly difficult to maintain a State
Establishment under such circumstances. But when, in
addition to that, we find this house violently divided
against itself, and many of its members, lay and clerical,
so dissatisfied with it, on one side or the other, that they
would not move a finger to save it — nay, in some cases,
are advocates for its separation from the State — it really
seems that nothing short of a miracle can avert its fall.
However, it is clearly our policy to remain where we are,
if possible, to the last. And it will be time enough then
for each of us to determine whether we shall join any, and
if so, which, of the several churches into which disestab-
lishment will at once divide us.

Meanwhile, the responsibility imposed upon us by the
present state of things is to teach more clearly and de-
cidedly than ever the plain Scriptural doctrine of the
Lord's Supper. Perhaps, on the whole, we have rather
failed in this. We have been too nervous about appearing
to contradict some ambiguous expression in the formu-
laries of our Church, or being accused of taking a low
view of the ordinance. The highest view of the ordinance

4 The Lord'' s Suppei^' No Mystery,

must be the Scriptural view. And when we just take our
ideas of it from the words of Christ and His Apostles,
without regarding anything else, nothing can exceed its
simple grandeur. It is full of deep teaching, but it is
intelligible teaching. There is no mystery about it what-
ever, in the popular sense of the word mystery. The
moment you introduce mystery you introduce mystifica-
tion ; and when once mystification begins, the Privy
Council has plainly demonstrated that it is impossible to
put any limit to it.

A mystery originally meant the revelation of some
secret, which otherwise could not have been known. It
did not mean that the thing was unintelligible when made
known ; but that it required to be made known. The
person and work of Christ are called the " Mystery of
Godliness" — not as meaning that they are beyond our
comprehension, but that they enable us to comprehend, as
far as we need to comprehend, God and godliness. Christ
is the revealer of His Father, and thus is the great Mys-
tery of Godliness. Again, the same Apostle says : —
"Behold, I show you a mystery. We shall not all sleep,
but we shall all be changed." It is true that we cannot
comprehend i^t^z^i the change in our bodies will be effected.
But that is not what Paul meant. He meant to reveal the
fact that we shall be changed ; to open the secret to us,
as far as we need at present to know it. So, in our
Prayer-book, the Lord's Supper is called ** these holy
mysteries," not meaning that the ordinance is unintel-
ligible, but that it is a revealing, teaching ordinance.
Still it is a great misfortune that the expression is used,
because of its being so liable to convey a wrong impres-
.sion. And the same remark may be made on the words,
" verily and indeed taken and eaten by the faithful in the
Lord's Supper." Viewed in connection with all the other
statements of our Church, they can only refer to the feed-
ing upon Christ in our hearts by faith. But still they

The Lord's Supper No Mystery, 5

have an ambiguous sound, and it is much better to admit
this at once. They are not quite in harmony with the
key-note of the Church's doctrine. And instead of allowing
that to obscure and embarrass our teaching, instead of trying
to make our testimony exactly answer to that ambiguity,
we ought to be all the more clear and decided in enun-
ciating the plain Scriptural truth, so that there may be no
mistake about it whatever. We must never tire of insist-
ing— I St, that the bread and wine simply represent to our
imagination the risen glorified body of Christ, and, as
distinct from that, the blood-shedding, or death, of His
natural body on Calvary ; 2nd, that our eating and drink-
ing the bread and wine represent the action of faith by
which we personally appropriate to ourselves, and spiritu-
ally feed upon, the benefits to be derived from union with
Christ ; 3rd, that our united partaking of the bread and
wine represents our spiritual union with one another
through our common union with Christ, and constitutes
our union in an outward visible organisation, called the
Church ; 4th, that the only possible way in which, from
the nature of things, the ordinance can benefit us, is by
the effect which it produces on our minds as a symbolical
rite instituted by Christ Himself. The outward acts
bring before us spiritual truths, and thereby quicken our
faith. ** As often as ye eat this bread and drink this cup,
ye do show (literally preach) the Lord's death till He
come." It is a preaching ordinance, and nothing else.
In the Gospel, Christ is preached by words ; in the Lord's
Supper, He is preached by symbols. And whether you
eat Christ's flesh and drink His blood more effectually by
a sermon, by a communion, or by private meditation,
depends entirely upon which of them brings Christ the
most vividly before your mind. The nature of the benefit
they confer upon you is precisely the same; and thei<>
can be no other.
This accounts for the undoubted fact that there are

6 The Lord'' s Supper No Mystery,

Christians — amongst the Quakers, for instance — who never
receive the communion at all, and have never even been
baptized ; yet in whom Christ is manifestly formed as
fully and completely as in any Christian that ever lived.
According to the high sacramental theory, here are living
men who have never been born — for only baptism can
regenerate ; and strong, healthy men, who never take
food — for it is only in the Lord's Supper that you can eat
Christ's flesh and drink His blood. One might really
suppose that Quakerism was permitted as a standing
visible refutation of high sacramentalism.

Of course it will be asked — Why perpetuate the sacra-
ments, if people can do so well without them ? But it
might as well be argued that because some persons can
like and thrive on a certain diet, therefore all can — that
because one person can dispense with a certain mode of
taking food, therefore all can. The fact of our Lord hav-
ing manifestly intended the two sacraments to be perpe-
tual ordinances in His Church, is a sufficient proof that
they must be generally beneficial. And no one who
believes that Christ did mean them to be perpetual ordi-
nances can neglect them without spiritual injury. But
when a person has been taught from childhood — or has
recoiled from the gross superstitions which have in all
ages encrusted the two sacraments, into the belief — that
they could not have been intended to be permanent rites,
then, on any Scriptural view of their purpose, there is
nothing to prevent him obtaining all the spiritual food he
requires, just as you obtain it, and can only obtain it, by
faith. The Spirit of Christ dwelling in him can strengthen
his faith without the ordinance just as easily as He can
strengthen your faith by the ordinance. All this is quite
consistent with the very highest estimation of the ordi-
nance, as a means of strengthening our faith. But when
we apply to it our Lord's words, *' Except ye eat the flesh
of the Son of man, and drink His blood, ye have no life

The Lord's Supper No Mystery. 7

in you," we are met by the fact that some Christians have
life in them, who never partake of the sacramental bread
and wine.

And now let us look more closely at that strange per-
version of the ordinance, which is one of the most bewil-
dering things in the history of Christianity. It may be
expressed briefly as the doctrine of the Real Presence,
whether accompanied or not by that of Transubstantiation.
The Church of Rome holds that, after priestly consecra-
tion, what you see is no longer bread and wine, but the
body and blood of Christ. Others hold that the bread
and wine remain, but that the body and blood of Christ
are there also. In the latter case, you see, and feel, and
taste one of the things that is put into your mouth, but
not the other. In the former, you see, and feel, and taste
what is not there at all, and are unable to see, or feel, or
taste what is there. This, of course, involves an addi-
tional miracle — namely, the continued appearance of the
bread and wine to all the senses after they have ceased to
exist. But the miracle of having an entire human body
in your mouth, without any perceptible evidence of it, is
so stupendous, that to be required to disbelieve in the
reality of the piece of bread which does seem to be there,
is scarcely an appreciable addition to the tax upon your
faith. If Christ's body and blood are really there, it mat-
ters not one iota whether bread and wine are there also.
The only question is, whether Christ's body and blood are
there or not.

If any one thinks that this is too monstrous a proposi-
tion to argue about at all, and that we are wasting precious
time in even alluding to it, let him remember that it is the
belief of more than a hundred millions of Christians at
this moment, some of them members, and even ministers,
of our own Church ; that it has been the belief of a vast
majority of Christendom for more than a thousand years:
and that we have ourselves seen persons of education, piety,

8 The LorcT s Supper No Mystery.

and on all other subjects, of intelligence, adopt this view,
after spending half their lives under the full light of the
Gospel — facts which constitute almost as great a miracle
as the Real Presence itself.

Now, there can be no more striking contrast than that
between the perfect simplicity of the question itself and
the cloud of metaphysical words with which it is com-
monly mystified. I verily believe that, but for this mys-
tification, hardly any man in his senses could be brought
to believe it. The truth is, that its advocates really do
not know what they believe. They contend for certain
words, but when pressed as to the meaning of those
words, their ideas, if any, are found to be so utterly hazy
and impossible to grasp, that they cannot properly be
said to have any actual belief on the subject at all. And,
with all due respect to the Committee of Privy Council,
they have in their recent judgment most unfortunately
encouraged this unintelligent mystification, by saying that
the Lord's Supper relates to matters which can be " very
imperfectly comprehended by the human understanding."
No doubt there are truths, such as the Divine and human
natures united in Christ, which we can very imperfectly
comprehend. But the one question in dispute — namely,
whether a human body can be present in two or more
places at once — is as easily comprehended by the human
understanding as any proposition that could be submitted
to it. The question is not about Christ's Divine presence.
His Godhead is everywhere present. The question is,
whether His body and blood are present in the bread and
wine. And the human reason is capable of pronouncing
upon that as decisively and authoritatively as on any
question whatever. You have only to clear away the mist
of ambiguous words by which they try to persuade you
that it is something beyond your power to decide — you
have only to see what the Real Presence is, if it is any-
thing at all — to be able to pronounce as certainly as your

The Lord's Stepper No Mystery, g

mind can pronounce upon anything whatever, that it
is an absolute impossibility from the very nature of
things.

If any of you have become mystified about it, the best
service I can render you is to remove the obscurity, and
show you in the simplest possible way what the question
really is. You have, perhaps, discovered that the battle
seems to rage around the words *' objective " and ** subjec-
tive." To one acquainted with the philosophical use of
terms this is plain enough. But common people are
puzzled, and think that something beyond the grasp of
their minds must lie under these hard words. Let me
satisfy you that it is not so. If a friend were sitting with
you in a room, he would be said to be objectively present
in that room — whether you kfiezv that he was there or not.
You might be blind and deaf, or fast asleep ; but his
objective presence — ?>., his actual presence — would be
there all the same. On the other hand, if he were in
India, and you were looking at his picture and thinking
of him, he would be objectively absent from you, but sub-
jectively present — i.e., present to your mind. Now, if a
dispute arose amongst some philosophical bystanders as
to whether the body of your friend, which you and they
knew to be in India, was really present in the picture you
held in your hand, you might be exceedingly puzzled by
some of the words they used, and might flounder about
hopelessly if you got entangled in the controversy ; but
as to \hQ facts, you would not have the slightest doubt or
difficulty whatever. ' You might not be able to express in
perfectly accurate language the difference between your
friend's bodily absence and his presence to your mind ;
but you would know the difference, and nothing could per-
suade you that there was any mystery in it. Even a child
would feel no difficulty about the matter until you began
to puzzle him.

Now, there is not one particle more difficulty or mystery

lo The Lord* s Supper No Mystery,

about the question of the Real Presence. All you have to do
is to disperse the cloud of words that are used to prevent
your seeing the question in its naked simplicity. Just
remember that there are only two ways in which a mate-
rial body can be present — either objectively in its own
substance, or subjectively to your mind. Test by this one
of the favourite words for mystifying the matter. It is
said that Christ's body and blood are " spiritually " present
in the elements. A moment's thought will show that this
is a contradiction in terms. How can a hody be spiritually
present, except in the figurative sense of being present to
the spirit of one who is thinking of it } You might as
well talk about the solar presence of the moon, or the
lunar presence of the sun, or the chemical properties of
arithmetic, or the astronomical powers of the Greek lan-
guage, or the logical accuracy of horse exercise, or any
other absurdity. What presence can a body have except
bodily presence } What air can there be at night except
night air ? It is quite true that Christ's glorified body is,
what St. Paul says ours will be, *' a spiritual body" — that
is, a body perfectly adapted to be the habitation and
instrument of the glorified spirit. But that makes not
the smallest difference to the present question. For,
whatever the nature of Christ's glorified body may be, it is
still a hody ; and, whatever it is made of, it is just as im-
possible for it to be in two places at once, as it is for our
bodies to be so. An angel has a spiritual body, though of
what kind we know not ; but an angel can no more be in
two places at once than you can. An electric spark can
pass eight times round the earth in one second ; but it can
no more be in two places at once than the slowest-moving
thing in creation. You have only, I repeat, to sweep
away all the mystification by which controversialists throw
dust in your eyes, in order to be as certain that the Real
Presence is an absolute physical impossibility, as you are
of your own existence. Can a human body be whole and

The Lord's Supper No Mystery, 1 1

entire in the hands or the mouths of a million of persons
at once ? If it cannot, there's an end of the matter. And
I ask whether any more simple question could be pro-
pounded ? Not comprehensible, or very imperfectly com-
prehensible, by the human understanding ! The pro-
vince of reason as applied to it very limited ! Then there
is an end of alibis. What use is it proving that a man
was a hundred miles off when a murder was committed ?
He may have been in both places at the same moment.

But even this is not all. Since writing the above, a
most admirable letter from the Dean of Ripon has
appeared in the Times, in which he shows that, if you can-
not trust the evidence of your senses as to the distinction
between a piece of bread and a human body, you have no
evidence whatever for the resurrection of Christ — indeed,
he might have said, for anything else.

We learn {he writes) from St. Luke that Christ showed Himself
alive after His passion by many infallible proofs (re/f/iTjpiois). These
are recorded by the evangeHsts. He said, *' Behold My hands and My
feet that it is I Myself. Handle Me and see, for a spirit hath not
flesh and bones as ye see Me have," All such proofs were addressed
to the senses of the Apostles, and the result was a process of clear and
conclusive reasoning. The human mind is not capable of clearer proof
on any practical subject than that which is derived from the testimony
of the senses, and the consequent deductions of the reason. Such was
the proof, satisfactory, and as far as human consciousness is concerned,
infallible, which was given of the resurrection of Christ. Before His
death His flesh was similar to ours. " Forasmuch as the children are
partakers of flesh and blood, He also Himself likewise took part of the
same." His flesh, then, was an object of sense, concerning which men
might fairly reason — concerning which reasonable men could not but
reason.

If, after His resurrection His flesh had been something altogether
different— if it had been something not comprehensible, or very imper-
fectly comprehensible by the human understanding —if the pro\'ince of
reasoning as applied to it had been, therefore, veiy limited — if the
terms employed to describe it had not, and could not have, that preci-
sion of meaning which a proof of His resmrection demanded — had this
been so, how could His resurrection have been proved, and if His re-

12 The LorcT s Supper No Mystery.

surrection be not proved, reasonably and conclusively proved, where is
Christianity itself ?

But His flesh after His resurrection was appealed to as matter of
sense, and argument, and proof, therefore, it was quite comprehensible
by the human understanding, and, therefore, the province of reason as
appHed to it was perfect ; and, therefore, the terms employed to de-
scribe it had, and could not but have, the precision of meaning indis-
pensable for estabhshing the fact that He was, indeed, risen from the
dead.

Deny the clear and conclusive province of reason as applied to the
risen flesh of Christ, and you cannot prove the resurrection of His
body.

Admit the clear and conclusive province of reason as applied to the
risen flesh of Christ, and you cannot prove any presence whatever of
His flesh in the Lord's Supper. Nay, you can prove its absence, for
human reason is altogether competent to the conclusion that what
cannot be seen, or felt, or tasted, cannot be flesh, whatever else it
may be, and the question here is not about something else, but about
flesh.

All this is made clearer still by contrast. Let the subject under con-
sideration be " The Trinity." Here we can have no infallible proofs.
We may have, indeed, and we have clear revelation, reasonably attested
to be revelation, and, therefore, entitled to acceptance on authority, as
little children accept on authority ; but the subject-matter is confessedly
not comprehensible, or very imperfectly comprehensible, by the human
understanding. The province of reasoning as applied to it is therefore
very limited, and the terms employed in revealing it have not, and
cannot have, that precision of meaning which an argument between
man and man demands.

Acute controversialists of the Church of Rome have propagated
much deception by treating as analogous the mystery of the Trinity
and what they call the mystery of the Sacrament. Under cover of this
assumed analogy strange bewildering phrases have been introduced and
applied to flesh and blood — "spiritual," "supernatural," "sacra-
mental," "mystical," "ineffable," "supralocal."

But there is no ground for this. The mode of the Divine existence
is, indeed, a mystery, far beyond the province of human reason ; but
flesh and blood are not so, and bread and wine are not so ; and there
is not the slightest intimation in Holy Scripture of any mystery con-
nected with the Lord's Supper. But ecclesiastical tradition ? I
willingly leave to others the task of exploring that troubled sea, which
does indeed " cast up mire and dirt," but I may cordially and devoutly
embrace the definition of mysteries as applied to the Lord's Supper in

The Lord's Supper No Mystery. 1 3

our Book of Common Prayer — " pledges of His love and for a
continual remembrance of His death, to our great and endless
comfort."

Furthermore, the presence of Christ in the elements is
said to depend on their having been consecrated by
a priest. And what evidence is there that they have
been consecrated, except the evidence of our senses }
But, if what looks and feels and tastes like a piece of
bread may be a human body, then what looked like a man
consecrating it may only have been a piece of bread —
our eyes and ears may have altogether deceived us, and
the whole scene may have been a pure illusion, without
any reality in it whatever ; nay, the very book, or what
looks like a book, on whose authority we are asked to dis-
believe the evidence of our senses, may itself have no real
existence. I ihink I am holding something in my hand ;
I think I see certain words in it ; but it may be all a delu-
sion. Neither the apparent book, nor myself, nor anything
else, may have any actual existence at all — the whole
material universe may be a pure imagination, the baseless
fabric of a vision.

And this is literally true, as to one part of the Real
Presence. For the hlood of Christ has no existence, either
in the sacramental cup or anywhere else. There is no
such thing as the blood of Christ in all creation. Blood
can only belong to a corruptible body ; its function is to
remove the decayed particles of matter, and to supply
their place with fresh matter. There is a continual process
of corruption and renovation carried on by means of the
blood. The glorified body of Christ is incorruptible, and
therefore bloodless. The blood represented by the sacra-
mental wine is the blood of Christ's natural body, which
was *' shed" on Calvary, and returned to the dust out of
which it was formed. When it left his pierced side, it
became dead, corrupt matter, and nothing else. Had it
been possible to preserve it, it would have been gross

14 The Lord's Supper No Mystery,

superstition to do so ; and worse than superstition to
render it any adoration whatever. To drink one drop of
it would have been a horrible abomination. To touch the
life-blood even of an animal is strictly forbidden — how
much more human blood ! If the blood which was shed
for us were indeed reproduced in the sacramental wine,
the direst of all outrages that could be offered to the
Saviour would be to let it touch our lips. That it tasted
like wine would be no excuse for the impiety ; it would be
its entrance into our bodies that constituted the abomina-
tion. It was because our Lord was using purely figurative
language that He could say, *' Except ye eat the flesh of
the Son of man, and drink His blood, ye have no life in
you." It is because the sacramental wine simply and
solely represents to our minds the blood which was shed
for us on Calvary that we are allowed to drink it. As the
blood of the Jewish sacrifices was real blood, it could only
be applied by sprinkling. As the blood in our sacrament
is no blood at all, but something which represents it, we
can use a still stronger symbolical act of personal appro-
priation by receiving it into our bodies. If the glorified
body of Christ were visibly present before us, instinctive
reverence would no doubt lead us to render Him some
outward act of adoration. But if His shed blood were
placed before our eyes, or in our hands, nature itself would
teach us that there was but one thing to be done — namely,
to put it away, out of sight and out of reach, as quickly as
possible. Even on the dead body of our blessed Lord,
his loving disciples doubtless gazed with fond aff"ection ;
but who can conceive of their casting a second look on
the blood that stained the ground beneath His cross ?
Yet that is what ministers of Christ arc supposed to
reproduce whenever they administer the Lord's Supper :
that is what they adore, and teach others to adore : that is
what is off'ered us — to drink / Can it be possible ? It
seems like a hideous dream. But, no ; it is indeed a

The Lord' s Supper No Mystery. 15

waking reality. This, neither more or less, is the doctrine
of the Real Presence, as applied to the cup. And they
who believe it, and yet drink of the cup, are doing pre-
cisely what John or Mary would have done if they had
knelt down and lapped up the blood that streamed at the
foot of the cross. That blood — that blood — either is in
the cup, or it is not. If it is, then its looking and tasting
like wine makes no difference whatever to the morality of
drinking it. If it is not, then the doctrine of the Real
Presence is a gigantic fiction, alike insulting to our under-
standings and repulsive to our instincts.

So far from being inclined to speak lightly of it, or of
other false doctrines, because they are believed by
multitudes of able and pious Christians, it is that very
fact which irresistibly compels me to protest against them.
The more I love and admire those who are held in bond-
age by them, the more I abhor the delusions that have
power to mislead such men. How they can believe such
physical and moral impossibilities passes my comprehen-
sion. How God can allow it, is a greater mystery still.
But not all their piety, ability, or numbers should make us
admit one moment's doubt as to whether black is white,
or make us shrink from asserting the plain truth in the
strongest language we can find. Whoever and whatever
they are, we must withstand them to the face, because
they are to be blamed. The degree of blame attaching
to any individual, we are only too thankful to know, it is
not our business to assign. Still more thankful are we to
remember, that a time is quickly coming when ail delu-
sions will be dispelled, all controversies hushed, and all
the children of God know even as they are known. " They
shall see eye to eye, when the Lord shall bring again
Zion." So far from our present differences interfering
with our concord then, we may be perfectly sure that our
erring brethren will only love us the more for having
sought to bring them into the way of truth, and to prevent

1 6 The Lord^s Supper N'o Mystery.

others being led astray by their teaching, when their eyes
are opened to see the real nature of the errors which en-
slaved them. This thought should help us in the endea-
vour not to be separated in heart from them now, even
though we can give no quarter to their idols, but are com-
pelled, by loyalty to our common Master, to hew them in
pieces before the Lord. We are robbing them of no
privilege. For, even as regards our Lord's glorified body,
the doctrine of the Real Presence is as useless as it is
impossible. How would it benefit us to know that Christ
was bodily present with us, so long as He remained
imperceptible to our senses } We could communicate
with Him only by faith, just as we do now. And faitli
can communicate with Him at the right hand of the
Father as freely and instantaneously as if He were stand-
ing by our side. Practically, for all the purposes of faith,
He is as close to us as He can be. To receive Him into
our bodies could do us no good whatever. To receive
Him into our hearts is the one thing at present needful.
And for that we need not bring Him down from heaven ;
rather should we ourselves thither ascend in heart, and
feed upon the Bread of Life by faith with thanksgiving.

W. Spbaight & Sons, Priaters, Fetter Lane, London.

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